Standard 9

Implementation of the Child Safe Standards is regularly reviewed and improved.

Ensuring children’s safety is a core priority means building an organisational culture that is responsive to challenges and new situations and is willing to learn and change.

Continuous improvement is a dynamic process where constant reflection on what is working and where challenges or gaps exist is prioritised. A child safe organisation ensures that progress and outcomes are set, measured and monitored based on a range of different success indicators, not just the normalised standards and methods. Continuous quality improvement processes contribute to a culture of accountability and a commitment to ongoing quality assurance and elevated practices.

Actions you can take to apply this Standard in your organisation

• regularly review, evaluate and improve all policies, procedures and practices relating to children’s safety and wellbeing and update to keep them current
• seek the participation of children, families and your community in your reviews of policies, procedures and practices, and keep them informed about how their feedback is being incorporated
• analyse complaints, concerns and safety incidents to identify causes and systemic failures to inform continuous improvement
• create action plans to implement any changes resulting from periodic reviews and communicate these changes to staff and volunteers, families, children and the community to reinforce a culture of accountability and growth.

What if you’re a sole trader, small business or volunteer community group?

• implementing the Standards is not a set-and-forget activity. Commit to regularly reviewing your policies and practices and make changes where you need to
• regularly invite feedback from the children and families you work with, and the staff and volunteers associated with your business, and make changes based on the improvements they say are needed to help children feel safe.

How does cultural safety look?

• continually review your policies and procedures and assess whether changes are needed to ensure cultural safety. This can include consulting with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people involved with your business or organisation
• regularly invite feedback from the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples involved with your business or organisation and take action on what they say.

Successful implementation looks like a business or organisation where:

• staff and volunteers readily know and review practices and regularly consider opportunities for improvement
• feedback from children, families, staff and volunteers is regularly reviewed and used to trigger improvements
• the voices of children are evident in changes and improvements
• policies, practices, and procedures are reviewed and updated regularly to respond to feedback, changes or risks.

Further guidance

In addition to the information above, please find below some more specific resources that may be helpful for you to meet this standard. This is not an exhaustive list of the resources that are available but is a useful starting point.

There are some practices and activities that many organisations are already doing that will meet this standard. Some of these will be relevant across several standards. For example the development of a Child and Youth Wellbeing Policy could cover several requirements.

Last updated
4 July 2025